Dive Against Debris in Tenerife

I logged my dive number 53 today. Which means that I am now only 7 dives away from achieving fame and fortune. That shiny title of "PADI Divemaster" is coming ever closer week by week - and what a week this has been!

We went to Yellow Mountain this week and did a Santa theme dive. Pete, Melissa, Alice and all the interns complete with red Santa suits, hats and beards - spreading a jolly good mood at the dive site! 
We did a total of two dives that day. The first one, was led by Alice, and we did some wacky underwater pictures in our costumes. I did a kit removal at the bottom, in order for us to get some cool pictures of a Santa just floating around. It went fine.

I had the honour of leading the second dive and I had a crystal clear agenda for the dive to meet some other divers at random and blowing their minds when they would see a bunch of weirdo's dressed as Santa Claus himself!

We actually did swim by some other divers eventually, but to my HUUUGE disappointment  they didnt really seem flabbergasted or amused to be met by the Santa squad!

Upon our return to the marina, Pete announced that we might as well do our 100 meters tow and 800 meter swim (Sod's law applied, because this was the one day I didnt have breakfast)

So I threw off my jolly old Santa suit and did my 100 meters tow in 2.50 minutes I believe (not that bad really)

Next up was the 800 meters swim, wearing wetsuit, mask, snorkel, weight belt and fins. Side by side with Andreas and Moomim I lined up, waiting for the call to go.

Needless to say, I finished way faster than that lot. (Moomin didn't complete to to a very unfortunate fin related problem)

Thus week we also did our PADI Divemaster skill circuit (a number of exercises at in the pool, such as regulator recovery, kit removal etc.)

This went very well too, so as previously mentioned, now I only have to complete my last few dives, and I am home free!

I think I mentioned in one of my older blogs that Lydia is now a PADI Divemaster and Alice is now and PADI instructor, so therefore it was decided that the team needed to go celebrate the two of them - which we did!

We all did our fair share of consuming alcohol  but drunk as I was, a few things still stands crystal clear in my memory from that evening.

Lydia, a self-proclaimed lightweight in the world of alcohol ended up being so drunk that even Andreas and I (due to our Danish inheritance we obviously consider ourself experts in being drunk) had to see ourself outshone by this crazy little being from Holland!

In mid week, Pete and Melissa went of to have a few days of well earned vacation on a top secret part of the Island, leaving Alice in charge of running both the shop and us interns. 

So for the last few days, we have been going on shore dives and just having a good time!

Our first day without Mr. and Mrs. Boss, we went to Abades to do 3 dives. I have been to Abades a few times, and always enjoyed it, but this time I decided that it was time for a change, so instead of taking the usual route along a ridge, I choose to go in a whole other direction to see what was cooking there. Not much can be said about that dive really, the route i chose wasn't as adventurous and breathtaking as I was hoping it would be, but we did see an octopus and a few cuttlefish, so it wasnt all bad.

Second dive was led by Moomin, and he choose the safe more conservative route, and actually managed to get a bit lost, but he got right back on track again in the end.

Third dive, was just Lydia, Moomin, Andreas and me. So, as Im sure Pete would say it; "we just puddled around for 40 minutes, had a few giggles" and returned back right on time.

The next day, we loaded up our rental minibus and headed for Las Eras. I had only been there once before, so I was looking forward to revisiting this cool dive site,

While hoping that the currents wouldn't be as strong as they was last time I was there. They was.

During our second dive, when time came to start swimming back towards shore, we found ourself in a strong current, so we decided to ascend and do a surface swim

back to the shore, before loading up for our third dive at the site.

The third dive, took us to the pipeline that runs right outside of the bay of Las Eras. its a truly amazing place, packed with Moray's, Opctupusses and a few Rays
.

Yesterday we went to El Puertito, to do a Project AWARE dive. The theme of this dive, was to collect all the rubbish we could get our hands on underwater (and to play with the turtles obviously).

Despite the crappy visibility, we had three great dives at the site. We collected loads and loads of rubbish from the bottom, and had our share of attention from the turtles and I also led the one of the dives. 
On the dive that I was leading, we saw a baby turtle, so what more can you ask for?

Moomin, that wonderful little brown man, said some beautiful things at the following debrief that day.

He something in the likes of: That he was so proud just to be a part of these Project AWARE dives, and helping nature by removing just a little bit of bad stuff from the sea was a really rewarding experience. 
When we returned after our first two dives, with our bags full of rubbish, people were gathering along the pier to see what we were doing.

And I am quite sure that we made a pretty big impact into the minds of some of them. 
Seeing a bunch of divers gladly doing their part in protecting the environment, surely has inspired a few of them, to be more considerate with their own waste in the future and who knows, maybe some of them will go on to inspire other people in the future.

Just like rings in the water.

It must be something in the water down here thats making me so sentimental!

Hasta luego 

- Kevinito

PADI Instructors, PADI Divemaster's and Cava!

Welcome back to Tenerife!

This week has been a blast. Christmas is close (at least in the head of Melissa), everybody went and got drunk, Pete and Melissa has been off for a couple of days and a lot of great dives has been logged.

My first dive this week was the weirdest thing in the history of man. At least my history. Santa Dive. It sounds a bit weird, which it most certainly is. Imagine Pete, Melissa, Alice, Dennis, Lydia Mahmoud and me, all dressed like Santa Clause cruising into the waves on the RIB, off to Yellow Mountain where everyone is diving fully equipped with Santa clothes, beards, scuba equipment, dive computers, knives and whatever else fits the modern day Santa Clause.

We had two amazing dives.
Back in the marina no one could say we didn't pulled our share of attention and comments.
I think one of the funniest things about the dive, was the second one where the interns and I were on our way back to the boat. On the way to the boat we actually encountered two other divers. This happens kinda rare because Yellow Mountain is a fairly big place.
Anyhow what those divers saw that day at Yellow Mountain, no one will ever believe. The two divers descented and swam for Alien Rock, when out of the distance four shapes comes close. At first they won't believe their own eyes, but as the silhouettes come close they can see the red hats, the beards and when one of the four dives pulls out his 'slade' and writes "HO HO HO" they are certain. Santa Clause moved to Tenerife and became a diver.

After the Christmas dive everybody went out one day to celebrate Alice's new PADI instructor certificate and Lydia's completion of her PADI Divemaster course. We had so much fun and were practically laughing almost constantly from we arrived at the bar till we went home.
The next day Pete and Melissa was preparing for their holiday. None of us were up to much so we wasn't diving, but in the afternoon Dennis, Mahmoud and me went snorkling. I've never bother much for snorkling before I came here, but this was really cool. We found a great spot with loads of beautiful fish and because it is a lot quieter to snorkel than to scuba dive, we also saw a lot of fish that we don't usually see much of.

Anyway, after that day, Alice has been in charge of the shop. Fearing the worst, Pete and Melissa found it right two rent a car so we wouldn't be bored and go destroying the shop trying to find something to do. Up until now we have had three amazing days.
We have been diving everyday. First dive was at Abades. The dives was a lot of fun as everybody is getting used to each other underwater. Alice is a great dive leader and finds a lot of nice critters and such to look at. Of course it help a lot that i won the competition of spotting the "biggest" fish and that earn me a bottle of cava at the end of the day.

Our second dive was at Las Eras. Despite of a very strong current i enjoyed the dive a lot. This place is a really beautiful dive with kinda like huge steps into the deep. On the third dive that day Alice told me to lead us to the pipeline which of course was no problem for a skilled diver like me.
At the pipeline we saw so many fish and everything that I nearly don't remember them all. I saw five or six Moray's  A Common Ray and loads of other cool stuff.

The dive we had today was a Project AWARE-dive where we got to pick up rubbish. Wohoo!!!... Though I can easily hear how it sounds it was actually quite good. It helps a lot when you have to pick up garbage surrounded be turtles and pretty fish. We made a competition out of it and though I'm not really sure who won, I'm pretty sure I did again.

I think that is it for this week. Now i want to return to my recharging for tomorrow which involves me and Dennis sitting in our balcony playing guitar and drinking well deserved cava. Dives, dive certifications, good friends, warmth, what more could you ask for.

Till next week, Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Divemaster Exams and climbing Mountains

Another week down and I'm actually more than halfway through my internship. I really dont know time managed to fly by so quickly - but it did.

I led my first dive this week at Abades. We we're only 4 interns and no customers, so its not like there was any real pressure on me.

Anyway, Andres, Mahmoud, Lydia and I did three dives (Lydia only did the two first due to some misunderstanding regarding bringing enough bottles), Typical intern :)

I led the first dive. We were told to do a 30 minutes dive, and then surface exactly at our descend point.

Everything went fine - after 15 minutes of dive I signalled that it was time to start making our way back and everything went as smooth as I could wish for!

The only hassle we had, was the fact that the surge had roughed up so much silt were we were to descend and ascent, that the visibility was down to one or two metres. We stayed close together and never lost track of each other, so no it was never any major issue!

Andreas led the second dive, and Mahmoud the third, they both did well.

We had Pete timing our 400 meters swim this week as well. Swimming laps in a pool never was my cup of tea, but at least I finished within the allotted time - so I got it in writing now! 

We also did the 15 minutes float (whereas the last to minutes is with your hands and wrists out of the water) In the pool doing the 15 minutes float with me, I had Andreas and Mahmoud. Mahmoud and I had no problem floating the first 13 minutes, but Andreas (due to "slimmer" physic) was struggling a bit keeping buoyant. Then came the signal to raise our arms, and we did. I remained floating as if no change had occurred.

Mahmoud started struggling to keep is nose above water and Andreas just went down like a rock. All that donut eating finally paid of I suppose!

Our very own Alice, AKA Kim, AKA Santa's little helper rose to the rank of PADI instructor this week. So, well done and congratulations to her!

Convenient enough we had 4 customers, 3 of them doing their PADI Advanced course , so Alice was baptised in the doings of an instructor.  
Alice, Peter, the 4 customers and I headed for yellow mountain to do the course's. 
First we did a Peak Performance Buoyancy dive consisting of some exercises in the likes of hovering and swimming through hoops - they all did well - some more than others of course.

Next dive was a navigation dive. Before the second dive, I decided that I had enough air left in my tank from the first tank (you see were this is going already?)

After around 30 minutes of dive, I was down to my last 20 or so bars, and I decided it was time for me to get back to the boat. I swam up to Alice, intending to signal that I was low on air, and wanted to surface.

Poor Alice, conducting her first ever course as an instructor, and doing really well. And then suddenly she has this diver tapping her shoulder, signalling that he is out of air.

Ah well, nobody drowned and all went well in the end, so the day ended as a success for all of us.

There hasn’t been a whole lotta diving this week. We are mainly focusing on polishing our PADI Divemaster skills for the skill circuit. So this means many an hour in the cold waters of the small pool, consulting our slates to see what skills we should do next, trying to forget that we are shaking so much that it feels like we are dancing.

At least I feel that we are all making progress, developing pretty smooth like instructing skills!

It has also been a huge step forward that I passed my Divemaster exam. I can't remember my exact score, but I did alright.

We had a few days of this week, actually we had two days of in a row. The first day of, Andreas and I decided that we had seen what Golf del sur had to offer, so we headed of to Los Christianos for a crazy night out to end all crazy nights out. 
I don’t want to bore you with every boring little detail of our adventure. But the climax would be the two of us ending at a local discotheque at around four in the morning wanting to socialise with some of the locals. We actually had great fun at that place, that is until we got kicked out by a grumpy bouncer for performing a neat little party trick we have invented called the "spider-pig".

The "spider-pig" truly is an amazing acrobatic trick that is out of this world. To perform the "spider-pig" you need to have two guys. One guy stands perfectly still, while the other on jumps up and hangs on his shoulders, climbing all the way around his waist, and then over his shoulders and out through his legs - WITHOUT TOUCHING THE GROUND! 
Needless to say, we were the kings of that discotheque upon performing our act - at least in the eyes of us and the guests, but not in the eyes of the bouncer!

The observant reader may recall that I have been writing about climbing the "Montaña Roja" in one of my older blogs. So on our second day of, the mountain climbers club got together again - this time we had our eyes on a much higher mountain that we had named "Titty Mountain".

We started walking towards the mountain at around 13:30 in the afternoon, and reached the bottom of it around 17:15.

We had been walking all day, and now we were facing a serious problem, we had only around one hour worth on sunlight left, and the mountain was looking pretty steep.
The sensible thing would have been to call of the expedition and return on another day. But the mountain climbers club does not consists of weaklings, so we decided to go to the top, plant our flag, and hightail it down that mountain side before dark. 
Of course we ended up on that mountain top in pitch black, being trapped for more than four hours, before we found a somewhat safe trail down again. 
We all learned an important lesson that day!

"We all happy bunnies?"

-Dennis

My first time getting drunk................... honest :-)

You sure missed a lot of fun this week!
This time it’s not for me to say that I achieved a lot (except for the fact that I had my 100th dive), but the boys sure did achieve a lot!
The boys also did their 100m tow and their 800m snorkel (well Dennis and Andreas did their 800 meter, Mahmoud did 200)
They did their skill circuit and the kit exchange (if you have been reading my blogs, you know what I’m talking about when I say kit exchange).

Oh, oh, and we had an amazing night out!
Well, let me tell you about my week.

So, Monday Andreas and I had a day at the shop while Alice was diving with Dennis, Mahmoud and 3 customers  So Andreas was cleaning the windows of the jeep while I hovered the jeep (and I learned what hovering is, apparently you don’t need to be a wizard) after cleaning the car I timed Andreas his 800 meter swim.

Oh, Tuesday! I had two amazing dives. Melissa took me, Andreas, Mahmoud and a Dutch person to Abades Point and Abades Beach. At the first dive I saw 3 Cuttle fish, I sure love Cuttle fish. The second dive Andreas was leading and he did very well. I saw a Fangtooth Moray Eel, a Black Moray Eel, Cardinal fish and I hope you sit down while reading this because this is going to be so amazing! I saw an Angel shark!!!
The Angel shark was so beautiful. Unfortunately it was gone before Melissa had the chance to make a good picture so nobody really believed us, but who cares, I saw an Angel shark!

I timed Mahmoud and Dennis for their 400m swim and then Mahmoud again for an 800m again. Then I took Dennis and Mahmoud to the pool for a pool session to look at their skills, they’re taking it really serious and it’s great to see how good they are doing.
I hope they are ready for their skills with Pete tomorrow, and I hope they’ll get a great score.

All right, let me tell you about Saturday. We started this day with 2 SANTA dives, they were a lot of fun and I can’t wait to see the pictures!

And the first Santa dive with Dennis being my buddy was my 100th dive! And after the Santa dives the boys did their 100m tow and Dennis and Andreas did their 800m snorkel.

In the evening we all went out again to celebrate that Alice is a PADI instructor and that I’m a PADI Divemaster,

So this was part 2. Oh Mama, I was so drunk. I have never ever been drunk in my life, I don’t even drink.
And because I felt safe surrounded by Pete, Melissa, Alice and the 2 boys Dennis and Andreas, I thought why not. We had an amazing time and we had a lot of fun.
I can say that it sure was an experience. I remember the most crazy things and Dennis and Andreas told me a lot more funny things that happened that night.

The next morning after being so drunk, Melissa came to check on me to see if I was ok, and actually, I was mighty fine. (from all the stories I’ve heard about being drunk I expected a major hangover.) That’s how nice Melissa is.

Well, that was my awesome week

New Dive sites in Tenerife :-)

Week 6! It is not even my favourite number but what a week it was!

Packed with diving and not just normal fun recreational diving, but fun new experiences!

First two dives of the week were Santa dives :)

I had never ever thought of diving in a costume and if I ever had I would have never thought it would be with a full Santa costume on a boat with 7 other Santas singing Feliz Navidad on their way to yellow mountain waving to other speed boats riding their way back to the marina.
And it was fun and the mood was great, can't wait to see the pictures of all the Santas underwater. Unfortunately I did not manage to keep anything from the costume to keep as a souvenir, but I guess the pics will do just fine.

The following day was just a very short day at the shop. Everyone went to San blas after the santa dives to properly celebrate Alice's new instruction certification and I heard it was so much fun.

We all showed up at 2:00 pm in the shop the next day for our kit set up and pre dive safety check skills, I scored 5 in the first but had to repeat the other one another day because I did it too fast. I practiced it a couple of times though this week and I will definitely do much better next time.

Pete and Melissa took off for their holidays on Monday.

We headed to Abades for 3 dives.  Dennis led the first dive by taking us to a different route where Andreas somehow managed to see a severely disguised octopus that was even hiding under a rock.

Then, we saw a big cuttle fish sleeping and burying itself under the sand. There were lots of lizard fish, scorpion fish and the very territorial blue damsel fish.
I was leading the second dive Where we went to the small caves up north and saw the cardinal fish and I loved the anemones
Lydia was leading our last 40 min dive.

The day ended with a great debrief, everyone was happy for a smooth, easygoing and fun day.

I woke up the next morning getting myself ready to dive in las eras. the first time I ever been there was on my first day of my internship.
The horizon was just so beautiful with the sun shining above us.
We found some cuttlefish, Andreas found yet another hiding octopus then we reached a current but we managed to swim our way through it.

On the third dive though we found the pipeline in the first 5 mins. The visibility was excellent and it was nothing like I had imagined really, was just a medium sized pipeline in the middle of huge blocks of concrete placed next to each other and it spread for as far as I could see for the whole duration of the dive. Was an exceptionally great experience as you just glide effortlessly guided by the pipeline just beneath you. And between each concrete block and the next you find something great, loads of scorpion fish of different sizes, lots of morays (black and brown) there was an amazing moray that was so curious and kept getting so close could almost touch my mask's glass.

We found out that we are going to El Puertito during the debrief after Las Eras diving experience.
We were all so excited for doing another project aware dive and hopefully see the turtles if we were lucky.
We were supposed to collect as many rubbish as we can from the shallow waters where the turtles live, it was for the sake of the environment, the turtles and the future of the dive site.

You would be amazed of how much rubbish you could find, it's just a sad thing that we are the enemies of our own environment. Many people forget that without the ocean there would be no life as we know it on planet earth.
After one hour of collecting rubbish and playing with turtles we came out with 4 sacks completely filled with rubbish.

This was apparently very inspiring for all the locals sitting on that cafeteria down the beach to find 5 divers very early in the morning coming out of the water with bags full of garbage.
They even asked me why we do that and an answer as simple as to clean the beach and have a good impact on the environment put a simple yet genuine smile on their faces and a rewarding feeling for myself.
On the third dive we were followed by the turtles, swimming right next to us for at least 50 metres then going and coming back to check us out every now and again. Could have never asked for more :)

We wanted to discover a new dive site.

It turned out to be a very nice dive site. There is a lot of octopus there and many huge starfish and a few cuttlefish. It's not that deep,  the deepest I guess was 10 metres where the cool rock formations were.
We even took some fun pics sitting there next to each other all the interns. We ended the day by snorkeling in the rain and doing some fish ID.

All in all this week was one of my most favorite weeks, everything was running smooth and everything was easy and we all had a lot of fun. Looking forward for the next week!

Sharks, Drinks and Mountains

Boom! I haven't had a lot of dives this week, but the ones I had was some of the most awesome dives ever!

I had a couple of days off, more of that later, first onto the actual dives of this week.

My first dive this week was at Abades. It was just Mahmoud, Dennis, Lydia and me.
I spend my whole morning in our balcony under a blanket, eating doughnuts  spilling coffee and pumping cigarettes. Then we went to the shop, prepared our kits and went to Abades.
There was nearly no visibility at all and we were to lead one dive each. I know I've been at Abades a couple of times before, but I've never really figured the site out.



Anyway, we went there and it actually went well. When we descended the visibility was somewhere in between zero and nothing, but I of course used my enormous wisdom of tides, waves, surf and surge to figure out that if we went into the reefs the visibility would be better.

To my surprise it worked and we had a great dive. We saw three Cuttlefish at the same time. All entangled in each other and swimming around. Pretty cool.
Of course after swimming around all over the place with me being really confused about our position, but me playing it cool, we actually surfaced two or three meters from the place where we descended. Nice one.

On our third dive, which Mahmoud was leading, we were down a bit longer so we spent the last five or six minutes just playing around. It was probably like seeing a couple of children seeing a scuba-kit for the first time. Just until we saw some other divers heading our way.
Mahmoud was quick to signal and write on his slate that we needed to look pro.
In those minutes no diver in the world has ever looked and acted that professional under water as we did.

Then we had some days of and after that a new dive at Abades. This time with a Dutch customer replacing Dennis. You could say a lot about this dive, but really everything would be nothing compared to the one and single fact that I SAW AN ANGEL SHARK!!!

I saw a freaking shark! Not just far away or out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shark swimming and we all started following it to see more of it.
Unfortunately no one got a really good picture of it and therefore of course no one will actually believe it because everyone will be too jealous to recognize it. anyway. I SAW A SHARK!
All in all that dive was pretty awesome 'cause we didn't just see an ANGEL SHARK!
We also saw Cuttlefish, Morays  Cardinal fish, Octopus, Pearly Razor fish, Scorpion fish, Atlantic Wrasse and much much more.

When that is said, the first dive we had that day was actually pretty cool too. We swam along the shore from Abades Beach, which I've never tried before, and I kinda liked the new site. At this single dive we managed to see five Cuttle fish which of course is always a good thing.

This week I also passed my PADI Divemaster exam which was a relief and I did my 400 meter stamina test. That went pretty well. I guess I've never been the best swimmer in the world and when I first got here and did the practise 400 meter swim my time was without doubt one of the worst ones Dive & Sea has ever seen 15-something for swimming 400 meters... Yeah I know, pretty bad.
Well at least I improved and my final time was 9 minutes and 30 seconds so that is not all bad.



Now we just need the other stamina test and the skills in the pool, then I'm a PADI Divemaster.........  Yeah and well some more dives, but still.

This week I also had a couple of days off. The first evening after work I spend with my buddy Dennis, making Los Christianos and Playa De Las Americas a dangerous place to be. I can't remember the last time I had such a serious night out. Name a bar in Las Americas and we've been there. As I recall it, we ended up taking a taxi to Adeje or something to find ourself in at a very large and very local salsa disco. For two people who've studied Spanish for three years each, it is incredible how little Spanish they speak what must have been between two and six hundred beers. We had a great time and ended up sleeping in the sofas in our balcony.
Next day (gladly after our hangover) we all went out to dinner back in Adeje. I really enjoyed that and it was nice seeing everybody off work for one evening.

The day after that Dennis, Lydia, Mahmoud and me cocked-up big time. at one o clock we decided to climb a mountain we've been looking at for quite some time. Unfortunately instead of taking a bus, we decided on walking there. Well to make a very long story short, we got there around five thirty and after walking for five and a half hour we would give up at the foot of the mountain even though the sun was about to go down.
We decided to climb the mountain as fast as possible and the run down. Well of course skilled mountaineers like us made it to the top, but only to see the sun go down and us standing on the top of a huge mountain in complete darkness.
It took us more than 4 hours to find just a somewhat safe path down, only after hanging in darkness on a vertical cliff side with nothing to hold onto but a small rock, a flimsy branch or a cactus.
When we finally got down we were in the middle of nowhere with cuts and bruises and had to walk to the nearest ghost town called El Roque, just to find everything closed.

No need to say that Pete and Melissa wasn't glad to see us in the shop without any sleep next morning.
Let's never do that again, not in the dark anyway.

Well that's all for this week so
May the force be with you young padawan

New Dive sites in Tenerife...... well for me anyway :-)

I was surprised when we went on a different path on our second dive in yellow mountain. We went west instead of east to a place called Swim Through. It is actually called swim through because we swam through a cave like structure only very shallow and wide open so that you can swim through it to the other side. It was the first time I have ever done anything like that and I really liked it so much. This time I was buddy with Dennis. We were following the group from behind making sure everything is ok and everyone is close to Alice as she leads the dive from the front.

The next day we took Gee to Abades where Melissa was leading the dive. It was the first time we go to the shore from the right side instead of the normal left side from the coast. It was such a beautiful dive where we saw a family of cuttle fish and some morays.

The second dive on the other hand was definitely a very significant dive in my life. I had never seen so many creatures in one dive and was the first time I ever saw an Angel Shark. I thought it was a big one but Melissa told me it was still very young, in any case it was very fast and ran away from us contradicting my expectations as  I thought they were very curious creatures. We also saw Black Moray, Fangtooth Moray, an Octopus, a few Cuttle fish and a lot of different fish.



Then comes the thing I enjoy the most in diving. Night diving is amazing I love the nocturnal creatures they are just so beautiful and all the creatures become less shy in the night. I also never knew cuttlefish can glow in the dark after you point the light to them. And you gotta love the planktons!

We ended our week with a very productive day in the shop. Pete made our skill assessment in the pool, I will have to repeat the CESA and the hovering and we also did the kit exchange which I never thought would be such a beautiful experience.
Gives you much confidence and trust with your buddy. We had to change the scuba unit in addition to the mask and fins all underwater with only one functioning regulator while not allowing anything to touch the water. After doing the normal daily jobs in the shop there was still some time left and Pete allowed us to go snorkelling for an hour.

We spent 45 minutes snorkeling, free diving and doing some fish ID which was  the highlight of my closing day.

Avery productive and enjoyable week.

PADI Advanced course and PADI Rescue course!

Well, my third week at Dive and Sea Tenerife. 

This week has brought a lot of different dive, studies and experiences.

For starters I had my first deep dive as part of my PADI Advanced course. great dive with Dennis, Pete and Ann.

We got down to 26 meters where we had to do some different tasks. Putting squares and triangles into a for-the-purpose-shaped box seems easy for my one-year old nephew, but it sure ain't that easy when you're sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic, with a playful Common Ray trying to push you over!

Next dive that day was my navigation dive. We went to Yellow Mountain where we got down with compasses and tried the best we could to do some different swim patterns using our compasses.
Last dive that day was our fish-ID. Great dive. our objective is to go down and try to spot as many different fish as possible. 

We tried to sketch some, and then find the names and such back at the shop. Maybe me and Dennis, my buddy, cheated a bit by just swimming to the nearest reef, splitting a few Sea-Urchins and waiting for the fish to come to us. Luckily for us our plan worked out just fine, and we saw loads and loads of beautiful colours all around us.

The next day was our time to become PADI Advanced divers. 
A day with a night dive and a peak-performance buoyancy dive.

Well beside the obvious physical pain in my body by getting up that early in the morning, it was probably the best dive I've ever had. 

It's a completely unique feeling when you are descenting into dark water with only a flashlight to keep you just a little oriented. Well the most amazing thing of the dive was after a couple of minutes down hanging a few meters off the bottom, when a huge two and a half meter Sting Ray come gliding our of the water. One of the most incredible sights I have ever seen.

After that experience the next dive that day has to have a serious thrill to keep up, but none the less we really enjoyed ourself at the next dive, swimming through hoops under water and trying to establish good buoyancy  Piece of cake if you ask me.

With my PADI Advanced course completed I was going straight on to the PADI Rescue course. At first it took a lot of reading to get ready for exams and stuff, so that we could finally all get onto the fun part by splashing around in the water.

The rescue course is really one of the funniest courses you can take of all the PADI courses. Even picking a non-responsive diver up from the bottom, it really gives a lot of laugh. people passing by stopped just to look at seven crazy people swimming around, half of them giving their best efforts to act like panicked divers, and the other half trying to rescue them to the boat six feet away.

Anyway the course went great and I can now call myself a certified PADI Rescue Diver.

After that the rescue course I had a few days just working in the shop. Cleaning kits, reading and things like that, so I was really thrilled when I went on a dive at Abades again with Melissa, Dennis, Lydia and Mahmoud. We had three dives with Lydia leading and they all went great. 

Just swimming around looking at funny and pretty creatures with no stress at all. Abades Beach is a really chilled place to dive. Just to walk to a beach with sun bathing tourists and disappear into the waves to find a quiet world just outside reach of the regular sun tanners.

Yesterday I had a great dive. Dennis and me were doing our first mapping divers which we need for our PADI Divemaster certification. First we got a really nice tour around Alien Rock together with Pete, where we tried to draw our own maps. 

The next dive we had to find our own way around leading Pete who got lost for the first time at Yellow Mountain and had to rely on his two new favorite interns. But after all we led Pete safely back to his beloved little vessel and he could climb safely aboard. I'd like to say that we tried to calm him down and then sailed the boat back to shore and smoked cigarettes while Pete washed the kits,( Or was this all just a dream!!)

We went to help out at some pool sessions with some new costumers, preparing them to their first dive in three years. all in all it went quiet well and we all went to Yellow Mountain for three dives. 
We had three very good divers. spotted a lot of Cuttlefish and Common Octopus, aside from all the more regular, but still beautiful fish, at Yellow Mountain.

Well I think I'm gonna end my blog for this week, 'cause I'm in the lucky event of having my girlfriend being here to visit me for a few days, so at the moment I feel that I got more important things to do before my next day start tomorrow at seven. For a freaking wreck dive. That sounds pretty cool!

Hasta luego, which is Spanish for see you next week... Or something like that.

Andreas

PADI Divemaster exams and Urchin Killing!

It's is now officially one month here in Dive and Sea Tenerife, time is really flying so fast.
I had some time off this week so i had an opportunity to prepare myself very well on my Divemaster exam. I studied the Divemaster book very well and finished, revised and corrected the knowledge reviews and I also went through the Rescue manual.

It was so much fun having Dennis' and Andreas' girlfriend's around. They came for 3 or 4 days and they also brought Dennis' guitar all the way from Denmark. We were seriously thinking of buying a second hand guitar here in Tenerife so they saved us the hassle..
We spent lovely evenings on their couch in the balcony to the sounds of the guitar and Leah s voice. Just amazing!

There are two parts in the Divemaster exam, I thought I was going to complete the two parts on separate days but I really just wanted to get it over with.
I knew that I passed the Divemaster test with 96% on the first part and 90% on the second part.
So I went back home relaxed with a sense of achievement!
In any case, reading the Divemaster manual in the future will be much more fun!

In the morning we had two project AWARE dives which was something I was really looking forward to since I came to Tenerife.
We will have the opportunity to do at least a couple more project AWARE dives while we are here but the first two was to remove as many sea urchins in yellow mountain as we can.
Sea urchins reproduce very fast and they are a major threat to the local ecosystem as they have no local predators.

To make things more interesting we had a small competition, the one with the most confirmed kills wins a project AWARE t shirt.
Dennis did a great job with a staggering 280 kills.
When we came back to the shop we practiced some skills in the pool and it is always nice to see improvements in the whole team.

The following day was an easy, nice and productive day. It was funny because I was just thinking about that on my way to the shop then the first thing we did to start our day was jumping in the pool in the early morning to have our official timed 400m swim.
It wasn't my best time I did but scored a 4 out of 5. We also practiced some skills in the pool then I started reading the Encyclopedia of Recreational diving which turned out to be very informative and very interesting!

I had very significant checkpoints this week like passing the Divemaster exam, timing our swims and Project Aware dives.
We had interesting times and loads of achievements and now it's time to look forward for a start of a new month, in Dive and Sea Tenerife.

Night Diving WOW! Oh and im a Rescue Diver :-)

PADI Open Water - Check

PADI Advanced Open Water - Check
Emergency First Resonder - Check

PADI Rescuediver - Check

PADI Divemaster - Not quite there yet.

Woah, time really flies by here. One of the few indications that I´ve been here for quite some time, is the fact that my pale (practically fluorescent) butt, appears whiter by the minute, whilst the rest of my body is getting a healthy tan!

"Blog icebreaker" - Check!!

I finished my PADI Advanced Open Water this week. Had some truly mind shaking dives. Especially the night dive was one to remember.

We got up around 04:00, zombie walked down to the shop and arrived at 05:15, prepared the kits and drove off into the night. 
Im quite sure that my brain was still sleeping this whole time - but it certainly came back to life the minute i back rolled off "Cometa Chica", and into the chilly blue.

We all meet up by the front of the boat, and began our slow descent into what seemed like nothing at all. The only source of light was our torches and, besides from the bubbly sound in my ears, the water was pretty much as quiet as it was dark.

At one point i actually forgot that I was diving, and that the soft pressure I felt all over, was actually caused by water. I felt like I was flying, weightlessly through space.

As we got deeper, the darkness seemed thicker and more dense.

All of the sudden, out of the darkest of dark, sporadicly illuminated by our torches, came the very stuff that many an old sea-dogs tale is based upon: The biggest Ray that I´ve ever seen, swooped elegantly towards us. 
At moments like this, when you fortunate enough to be around to see these amazing sights, its hard to believe your eyes!

Besides from my night dive, I had an additional 4 adventure dives: Peak Performance buoyancy dive , Navigation dive, Deep dive and Fish identification dive.

The peak Performance Buoyancy dive, consisted of some fairly easy exercises  hoovering for a couple of minutes and swimming through a couple of hoops without adjusting your buoyancy through your BCD.

The navigation dive went great as well. Measuring kick cycles and navigating around yellow mountain in squares and triangles. (What's up with these people and shapes?)

The deep dive was a pretty cool experience. It didnt really feel different that your ordinary 10-18 meters dives, but just the fact that you have been down to around 30 meters, is an achievement in itself - in my book at least!

Before the deep dive, we were presented with a few small tasks that we were to complete while Pete was timing us. Tasks like; write your mothers maiden name backwards, some simple fractions and fit these different shaped (there it was again) blocks into the right of a box. 
At the bottom we had to solve the same tasks again on time, to see if we were affected by nitrogen narcosis (A syndrome occurring when the pressure of the water compresses the air in your tank, and therefore letting you inhale more nitrogen molecules pr. breath than at the surface, causing you to go to "lala-land") Although happy that I wasnt affected at all, I still feel like I missed out on a psychedelia underwater experience (nah just kidding) (Or am I) (Yes i definately am) (Perhaps).
The fifth and final adventure dive, was the fish identification dive. Not much to say really. A dive at yellow mountain equipped with a slate intended for writing up the all the different names of the fish I saw.

Sam left us this week - So now Lydia is next in line to rise to the status of PADI Divemaster. This means that she is doing more predive briefings and leading a few dives here and there. 
We went to Abades one day and Lydia was leading. I think she did an amazing job! 
She lead us in and out of that dive site, taking crazy routes and I really dont know how she could find her way around the place.

After thrashing the place in three dives we headed down to the marina and cleaned the kits.

This week was also the week I completed my PADI Rescue diver course. 
After chewing my way through the big sleeping pill that is my rescue diver manual, we did some confined water exercises. 
It was pretty fun to simulate being a panicked diver, trying to climb on top of the other interns rushing to help me.

We went through procedures for handling everything from panicked divers to tired divers and unconscious divers both at the surface and at the bottom.

A few days later, we headed up to yellow mountain to do the open water scenarios. 
Up until now, the things that I have learned have been things that were nice to be able to do and know, simply because I enjoy doing it. But the rescue diver course have taught me things that makes me able to, potentially, save somebody's life if such a situation ever occurs.

Thats it from me for now, more next week.

Dennis (PADI Rescue Diver)